1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to display stands, and more particularly pertains to a display stand for nail polish color samples. The cosmetic industry has grown to a multi-billion dollar per year business. Increasing competition in the cosmetic industry among various manufacturers has resulted in a proliferation of the available color shades of nail polish. Conventionally, these polish shades are displayed in books, on charts or by aligning nail polish bottles in spaced relation on vertical racks. These various display methods consume a relatively large amount of space and are ineffective to display the large number of available shades in a small area. Additionally, it is cumbersome for a consumer to page through a sample book or to pour over a large chart in order to select a nail polish shade. Frequently, consumers sorting among nail polish bottles displayed in racks drop or damage one or more of the bottles. Additionally, the aforesaid displayed methods do not provide a realistic display of the nail polish, as it appears on a nail surface. In order to obtain a realistic indication of a particular nail polish shade, many customers will open a polish bottle and apply a small quantity to their own nails. This forces retailers to provide sample bottles or to incur expense due to the wastage of opened bottles. In order to overcome these problems, the present invention provides an improved nail polish color display stand which provides a realistic display of each nail polish shade on an artificial fingernail. The display stand of the present invention can display as many as two hundred thirty-six different nail polish shades within a small cylindrical housing having only a twelve inch diameter.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Various types of display stands are known in the prior art. A typical example of such a display stand is to be found in U.S. Design Patent 161,804, which issued to J. Walsh on Jan. 30, 1951. This patent discloses a lipstick display case for displaying a plurality of lipstick tubes on vertically ascending steps. U.S. Pat. No. 3,102,637, which issued to W. Scholl on Sept. 3, 1963, discloses a holder for dental burs which include a plurality of annular vertically extending steps. A plurality of spaced apertures are provided on a horizontal annular surface of each step for receiving the shank of an individual dental bur. U.S. Pat. No. 3,485,344, which issued to E. Aylott on Dec. 23, 1969, discloses a display container for artificial fingernails which includes an arcuate array of adjacent recesses provided in an interior floor portion of a hinged case. U.S. Pat. No. 4,140,139, which issued to E. Aylott on Feb. 20, 1979, discloses a package for mounting and displaying artificial fingernails which includes an array of increasing size artificial nails displayed in adjacent relation.
While the above mentioned devices are suited for their intended usage, none of these devices are capable of displaying an extremely large number of nail polish color shade samples within a very small area. Additionally, none of these devices include a cylindrical housing a hollow interior defined by an interior floor and an interior side wall forming a series of vertically ascending steps of increasing diameter. Inasmuch as the art is relatively crowded with respect to these various types of display stands, it can be appreciated that there is a continuing need for and interest in improvements to such display stands, and in this respect, the present invention addresses this need and interest.